Human Services Index

In constructing the overall Boulder County Human Services Index (using Census Tracts as the geographical unit), we transform each indicator so that we can measure them on a similar scale. We express the data in standardized (or z-score) form, which indicates how far a Census Tract's raw score is from the mean of all Census Tracts. After the transformation process, all indicators have a mean (µ) of zero (0) and a standard deviation (σ) of one (1). The indicators thus can be expressed in the same units of measurement. The z-scores for each indicator were summed to get a total score for the index. The total score was classified into 5 categories using the natural breaks (Jenks) classification. Then they were ranked from very low to very high based on the natural breaks. We used the same methodology as developed by Dr. Lisa Piscopo, Executive Strategist for Denver Human Services. Data primarly comes from the American Community Survey 5-year estimates (2020-2024).